Science No Chaser

[Two Clarias gariepinus catfish caught near Bogor, West Java in Indonesia. Image by W.A. Djatmiko via Wikimedia Commons and CC-BY-SA-3.0] There’s one in every school. These aggressive individuals go around pushing and biting their neighbors, goading them into risky behaviors–like breathing. Several species of catfish, including the African sharptooth catfish (Clarias gariepinus), have both gills that take …

[Above: Two bottlenose dolphins swimming around. Image via Max Pixel and Creative Commons CC0 license.] Human speaking voices come in a dizzying array of tones. They can be raspy or reedy, lilting or monotone, chirpy or sonorous, nasal or throaty, breathy or booming, and that’s before we even start describing accents. Most mammals, including humans, …

[Image by Wokandapix via Pixabay and Creative Commons 2.0 License.] Imagine you’ve been invited to a fancy dinner at a millionaire’s house. The table is set. The silverware gleams. The guests are chitchating about who does what for work and the season finale of Game of Thrones when the dinner host arrives and announces that …

[Cyanobacteria–green, brown, and orange streaks–grow in hot spring at Yellowstone National Park. Photo by Harvey Barrison via Flickr & Creative Commons 2.0] The troublemakers weren’t new to the neighborhood. For 300 million years, they had lived in the water column, floating in the sunlight near the surface, sending tiny plumes of toxic gas into the …

[Mast cells from a sinus stained in blue. Image via Wikimedia Commons & CC 2.0] On July 10, 2010, a DC restauranteur came down with what seemed to be food poisoning. He had no energy and no appetite. Rashes flared up. He could barely get out of bed. First hours and then days dragged by …

[A cancer patient rests in a hospital bed. Photo by Christine Gleason via Creative Commons 2.0 & Flickr] Tumors are master manipulators. They have to be in order to escape human immune systems. Scientists have found evidence that tumors hide by wearing biochemical disguises and some tumors can even recruit turncoat immune cells to their cause. …

Mitochondria: To most people, they’re little more than a ghostly memory fragment from middle school biology. However, these tiny “powerhouse(s) of the cell” are much more than they seem. They’re actually the shape-shifting descendants of ancient bacteria that were eaten by a larger archaebacterium billions of years ago. . (If you want to know more …

[A Sunflower Sea Star with several arms missing. Photo by Jerry Kirkhart via Flickr & CC 2.0 License.] In 2013, something strange started happening to the starfish, or sea stars, that live along North America’s Pacific Coast. Casual observers began reporting starfish that were “dissolving” or “melting”. “What you first see is they start getting …

[Photo by Jake Eberhardt via Flickr & CC 2.0 License] Lakes make excellent witnesses, says Utah State University assistant professor Janice Brahney. The sediment at the bottom of lakes can hold clues about life in the lake thousands of years ago, preserving everything from fossils to traces of rainfall. “I wanted to be a detective …

[Photo by David Short via Flickr & Creative Commons 2.0] “By Request” is a series of posts where I track down studies that answer questions asked by you, my blog’s readers. High School Friend Elna asked: “Impending extinction of bees- what can prevent?” That’s a tough question to answer, because some bee populations are …